Impact reductions

Vulnerabilities to hazards can be seriously reduced by temporary or permanent measures leading to impact reduction. Ariyabandu reports in Sahni and Ariyabandu (2003) that in India for the first time in the last fifty years several state governments are dealing with drought in different ways, moving away from relief to mitigation, while in two states where this started decades ago it brought visible results. He also indicates that mitigation planning and development planning in effect share common goals. Reporting on the Traditional Techniques of Microclimate Improvement (TTMI) project, that was funded by Netherlands Government bilateral development collaboration in Africa, Stigter and N'gang'a (2001) illustrate this with several examples.

Uncertainties in agrometeorology are part of everyday farmer conditions and Stigter et al. (2005a) have for example extensively dealt with traditional methods and indigenous technologies to cope with such consequences of climate variability, ttat such variability is increasing makes it more important to improve and extend the mitigating practices involved and pay attention to farmer innovations and to products from NMHSs, research institutes and universities that can be absorbed by farmers to better cope with increasing uncertainties and disasters.